Board game designers are coming up with new and innovative ways of combining traditional tabletop games with modern technology. The latest comes from indie board game publisher Lucky Duck Games which launched a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for Chronicles of Crime featuring a virtual reality (VR) element to the detective experience.

Chronicles of Crime is a cooperative crime investigation board game with a hint of VR thrown in for good measure. Players will be assigned cases, having to search for clues and interview witnesses and suspects. The base game comes with six scenarios to play through (around 6-8 hours) but thanks to digital technology this can be expanded upon in the future.
Utilizing the ‘Scan & Play’ technology, each character, location or evidence is linked to a QR Code. This means that each character can become someone else, each district card can be linked to a different place and 3D scenes can be reinvented.
The VR element comes into play with the 3D crime scenes. At certain points in the game players will have to search a crime scene for clues. Without VR glasses or a headset the scene can be moved around like a 360 photo or video. Adding the VR glasses (which come supplied on certain funding tiers) just makes it that bit more immersive.

Having only launched yesterday, the campaign blasted past its $15,000 USD (£10,789 GBP) funding goal in 25 minutes and currently sits at $181,035 (£130,219), unlocking nine of its stretch goals in the process. There’s just one left at $200,000 which will add two characters to the Welcome to Redview expansion.
The campaign still has 20 days to go, if you’re interested there are three funding tiers available. There’s the Starter Set for $39 (£28) which includes the base game, unlocked stretch goals but no VR glasses. The Deluxe Set at $49 (£35) has the base game, unlocked stretch goals and the VR glasses which include an additional scenario. The Ultimate Set – which is Kickstarter exclusive – will set you back $89 (£64), includes everything in the previous sets plus the two expansion packs, Noir and Welcome to Redview.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Chronicles of Crime and the latest Kickstarter projects featuring VR, reporting back with any further announcements.